A Historical Interaction-Enhanced Shapley Policy Gradient Algorithm for Multi-Agent Credit Assignment

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ding, Ao, Sun, Licheng, Hou, Yongjie, Zhang, Huaqing, Ma, Hongbin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ding, Ao
Sun, Licheng
Hou, Yongjie
Zhang, Huaqing
Ma, Hongbin
author_facet Ding, Ao
Sun, Licheng
Hou, Yongjie
Zhang, Huaqing
Ma, Hongbin
contents Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) has demonstrated remarkable performance in multi-agent collaboration problems and has become a prominent topic in artificial intelligence research in recent years. However, traditional credit assignment schemes in MARL cannot reliably capture individual contributions in strongly coupled tasks while maintaining training stability, which leads to limited generalization capabilities and hinders algorithm performance. To address these challenges, we propose a Historical Interaction-Enhanced Shapley Policy Gradient Algorithm (HIS) for Multi-Agent Credit Assignment, which employs a hybrid credit assignment mechanism to balance base rewards with individual contribution incentives. By utilizing historical interaction data to calculate the Shapley value in a sample-efficient manner, HIS enhances the agent's ability to perceive its own contribution, while retaining the global reward to maintain training stability. Additionally, we provide theoretical guarantees for the hybrid credit assignment mechanism, ensuring that the assignment results it generates are both efficient and stable. We evaluate the proposed algorithm in three widely used continuous-action benchmark environments: Multi-Agent Particle Environment, Multi-Agent MuJoCo, and Bi-DexHands. Experimental results demonstrate that HIS outperforms state-of-the-art methods, particularly excelling in strongly coupled, complex collaborative tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_07778
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Historical Interaction-Enhanced Shapley Policy Gradient Algorithm for Multi-Agent Credit Assignment
Ding, Ao
Sun, Licheng
Hou, Yongjie
Zhang, Huaqing
Ma, Hongbin
Multiagent Systems
Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) has demonstrated remarkable performance in multi-agent collaboration problems and has become a prominent topic in artificial intelligence research in recent years. However, traditional credit assignment schemes in MARL cannot reliably capture individual contributions in strongly coupled tasks while maintaining training stability, which leads to limited generalization capabilities and hinders algorithm performance. To address these challenges, we propose a Historical Interaction-Enhanced Shapley Policy Gradient Algorithm (HIS) for Multi-Agent Credit Assignment, which employs a hybrid credit assignment mechanism to balance base rewards with individual contribution incentives. By utilizing historical interaction data to calculate the Shapley value in a sample-efficient manner, HIS enhances the agent's ability to perceive its own contribution, while retaining the global reward to maintain training stability. Additionally, we provide theoretical guarantees for the hybrid credit assignment mechanism, ensuring that the assignment results it generates are both efficient and stable. We evaluate the proposed algorithm in three widely used continuous-action benchmark environments: Multi-Agent Particle Environment, Multi-Agent MuJoCo, and Bi-DexHands. Experimental results demonstrate that HIS outperforms state-of-the-art methods, particularly excelling in strongly coupled, complex collaborative tasks.
title A Historical Interaction-Enhanced Shapley Policy Gradient Algorithm for Multi-Agent Credit Assignment
topic Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07778